Ten after Four "Push Them" was having trouble sitting up. The empty flask of watered-down whiskey lay beside him in the gravel. He sat cross-legged, his left leg 'going to sleep'. He uncrossed his legs and then recrossed them, switching the position of his legs. His left leg began to 'wake up' and the subsequent needles stinging his muscles were like a thousand bee stings. He swore at the air and stomped his foot against the adjacent iron rail of the Kansas and Gulf railroad. "By damn!" he swore, and then pulled his left leg back under him almost falling over in the process. He straightened himself up and sat peering out from under his felt hat which was cut in the manner of a gentleman rancher. It was his "Sunday" hat, the one he wore to important meetings, gatherings, social events, and on the rare occasion when he accompanied his wife to the services at the nearby mission. In fact, Push Them was dressed in his finest attire. His boots were spit-shined, he was wearing his vest over his best shirt, he even had his pocket watch secured in his vest. Thinking of the timepiece, he pulled it out to look at it. The hands still locked in the position of 2 and 4 as they had been ever since he had obtained the once-shiny pocket-watch. He then peered up, finding the sun still climbing towards it's zenith. Satisfied, he put the pocket watch back in it's place, regained his balance, and sat up as straight as he could. He stared straight ahead, his eyes purposely narrowed, as if to give him the appearance of being on serious business. "Yes," he thought to himself, "it is almost time." He sat listening, and then heard the sound of the train whistle as it neared the road crossing at the mission. The train would then begin a short climb up the grade out of the red haw thickets. It would come up the mountain belching black smoke as it lurched and groaned on it's ascent. Here sat Push Them near the top of the grade, cross legged on the black locust ties stained with oil and grease, in his finest clothes and his finest hat, waiting. He heard the train begin it's ascent and reached down to the tie in front of him. He drug his hand across the tar and then motioning first to the east, and then the west, he drew his hand from his brow to his chin, leaving five trails of black across his face. He began a song. Now! You Ancients! Hear me! Push Them, he is ready. Push Them, he is willing. Push Them, is my name. He stood up.. Wobbling a little on his stiff legs, Push Them straightened himself, and began singing louder. The black smoke belched again, and the locomotive strained against the mountain. Push Them sang louder and put his hand out in front of him, commanding the beast to stop, to die on it's climb up the mountain, to hush it's bellowing. To cease. The engineer saw him and having seen this before and the futility of trying to stop, reached up and pulled the cord to the whistle again. Discordant tones of the train whistle, the locomotive and the squeal of metal against metal combined with the scream of Push Them and flesh against metal and the muffled thud of spirit, flesh, bone and iron caused the blackbirds in the sycamores to erupt in one giant black cloud towards the heavens, swirling higher and higher, until they combined with the pulsating light of the now overhead sun. A spit-shined boot lay aside from the track. Seemingly tossed there by one who no longer needed them, next to the shards of shattered white tombstones bearing the names of Push Them's grandparents. The tombstones thrown there when the surveyors had begun the right-of-way for the coming railroad. The only way to get down the mountain to the river bottom and across the river without having the train needlessly encumbered by the steepness of the mountain. The burial ground being a small price to pay for progress. Push Them's father and uncles had fought the railroad and in the end, their own Council, to prevent the laying of iron over the loved ones' resting place to no avail some twelve years earlier. The train whistle cried out again as it neared the river, and mixed with the whine of the now far off whistle were the discordant cries of the spirits of the Ancients and of the souls of the family of Push Them. Ten after four, the second Sunday of October, 1898, Goingsnake District, Cherokee Nation, Indian Territory, in a land known as America. |
"Ten after Four" © Wauhilau as posted in
alt.discuss.clubs.public.culture.native-american.benable
on Fri, Aug 18, 2006, 10:31pm (EDT-3)
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"Necromancer" midi courtesy of élan michaels
bead bar courtesy of Greasy Grass